Five Things: How to help our native bees
Five Things is a series of talks by Australian ecology experts that offers real-world steps you can take to boost biodiversity and to make your community a haven for native plants and wildlife.
One of the things we really need is to understand much more about our bees. We know very little about how many generations of bees there are each year for any particular species. We know very little about their habits and so learning to recognise bees, at least to the level of genus can be very helpful. Michael Batley, Australian Bee taxonomist
Listen to the talk
On Saturday 4 February 2023, leading native bee taxonomist, the Australian Museum's Michael Batley and native bee ecologist and science communicator Amelie Vanderstock discussed the importance, beauty and diversity of Australia's wonderful native bees and share ways to bring them to your garden.
Learn five things about the gentle art of watching bees and discover practical tips on how to identify native bees and encourage bee populations in your garden and local area.
© Magdeline Lum
Michael Batley
Michael Batley is one of only four Australian Bee taxonomists. Described as one of the “map makers of nature”, he has named over 40 new species of Native Bee.
For the last 20 years, following retirement from Macquarie University, Michael has volunteered at the Australian Museum, assisting with the curation of the Native Bee collection.
Amelie Vanderstock
Amelie Vanderstock is a native bee ecologist, educator and musical performer. As a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney and Hokkaido University, Amelie researches the role of urban greenspaces for promoting pollinating insect biodiversity. She also researches how we can use garden-based education to grow ecological literacy amongst urban populations. Cross-pollinating music and science, Amelie creates original educational music on native bees and gardening for biodiversity as ‘Amelie Ecology’.
